turtledovefandomcom-20200216-history
Talk:Ambrose Bierce
Deletion The In High Places bit is about The Devil's Dictionary, not Bierce himself. The Atlantis bit is incidental, and refers mainly to the DD as well. The only thing about Bierce that changes in this timeline is his nationality, and he's not fully name checked either. Kind of like Humphrey the Actor in 191. By contrast, Nathaniel Hawthorne's Atlantis counterpart is the subject of a more substantial anecdote, and can probably stay.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 05:22, August 3, 2016 (UTC) bump :In Atlantis, Helms refers to Bierce's writings being unusually wise not to the The Devil's Dictionary in particular. The link in the sub-section is okay but there is no actual reference to any names of his works. Further, Hawthorne's novel is the The Crimson Brand not The Scarlet Letter. ML4E (talk) 20:34, August 31, 2016 (UTC) ::The bit that Helms quotes is from the DD. Nothing about Bierce the man is revealed except that he was an Atlantean in this timeline.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 20:39, August 31, 2016 (UTC) ::I see no quote by Helms only a vague reference to him quoting it. I have now removed it. Give me the quote and I will consider it but I see nothing to support this here or in the The Devil's Dictionary article. ML4E (talk) 20:44, August 31, 2016 (UTC) :::"Do you know how an Atlantean sage once defined an accident?" Helms inquired. When the good doctor shook his head, Helms continued with obvious relish: "As an inevitable occurrence due to the actions of immutable natural laws. Mr. Bierce, I believe his name is, is a clear-sighted man." Atlantis and Other Places, p. 408. :::This is the entirety of the story's reference to Bierce. The emboldened line is a quote from the DD. There's nothing about Bierce's biography in there (beyond an alternate nationality), he isn't fully named, and the reference gives no insight into the Atlantis timeline. If you change the word Atlantean to American, the passage could be from a story set in OTL. I think the whole thing should be moved to lit refs.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 21:12, August 31, 2016 (UTC) ::::Which illustrates the lack of butterflies in the Atlantis series, what TVTropes calls In Spite of a Nail. Hence the Bierce section should remain. ML4E (talk) 18:39, September 1, 2016 (UTC) :::I just noticed that the Atlantis section had a somewhat speculative statement unsupported by the text, which I then eliminated. Now all that remains of the Atlantis section is a statement that Helms told Watson about one of Bierce's funny lines while they were stuck in traffic. Moving down to the In High Places section, we have some characters discussing The Devil's Dictionary, a conversation which is already covered in the DD's article. The IHP characters don't discuss the man Bierce, so there's even less justification for him to remain than there is for Marie Antoinette.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 21:38, August 31, 2016 (UTC) ::::Yes, well I had asked you back in March to check the book. You had written something rather vague and stated it was from The Devil's Dictionary which I deleted since I knew the book had not been named. You had based your entry on this inaccurate Bierce entry. You then added something equally vague in April as part of the "Literary Trivia" section that was also based on the incorrect Bierce article and I deleted yesterday. This finally drove you to check the primary source and correct this article although not add the proper information to the The Devil's Dictionary which I just did. I hope this teaches you the importance of actually referring to HT's works rather than the dilettante cross referencing you tend to do, but I'm not holding my breath. ::::Oh, and in IHP the Kleins both comment on how they like Bierce's biting humor so that is a reference to the man himself. ML4E (talk) 18:39, September 1, 2016 (UTC) ''In High Places Touching on some points listed above, I don't think the IHP section is needed. All the relevant info is in ''The Devil's Dictionary article. There are maybe one or two lines in the novel referring to stuff Bierce did in OTL.Matthew Babe Stevenson (talk) 19:26, December 16, 2019 (UTC)